Jan 27th, 2007 by bwann
Dinner at Kyoto last night for Mary’s birthday, quite a nice social gathering. Their “Texas Roll” was a new one to me: sauted beef, a slice of jalapeno, seaweed and rice. Either I wasn’t expecting it or it wasn’t jalapeno. I believe the latter, but if it’s the former, I didn’t know fresh uncooked jalapeno could pack such a punch.
Note for next trip to the Netherlands, the Ministry of Transportation and Public Works publishes an English guide to road traffic signs.
Sunday night a week ago I was running through EWR. My flight from Austin was delayed because of stormy weather in the northeast. I barely caught my flight to Amsterdam, I was the last person on the plane before it pulled away. I only caught a few hours of sleep on the flight over.
Schipol airport is by far the nicest airport I’ve ever been in. It’s practically a shopping mall and has a nice architecture. Everything is well labeled in Dutch and English. All sorts of stores both in the secure area and the unsecured area, like for electronics, perfume, flowers, souviners, clothes, bags and purses, small grocery store, along with the usual newsstands. It also has a train station for the InterCity train, one way takes you to Amsterdam and the other takes you to Belgium. Tons of ticket kiosks so you don’t have to stand in line to buy train tickets.
The most amazing thing to me at the airport was all the cashiers, agents, and service workers spoke perfectly clear, almost accent-less (maybe some with a bit of British), English. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if many spoke other languages such as French or German. Try finding that in airports in California or Virginia, where there’s usually some ebonics thrown in.
I picked up my car and headed off to work at Sciencepark. The first thing I did was overshoot my turnoff and wound up way up north on A10 past Schellingwoude. Pretty countryside, it’s worth exploring more I think. I finally got back around and found my exit to Watergraafsmeer. I was warned that there’s no street signs like you’d see in the US, and quickly found out it’s true. Instead, there’s blue signs on the sides of buildings; if you’re lucky, you can read them before you’re already in the intersection.
After work and dinner, I headed back to Oud Zuid to find my hotel by Vondelpark and this is where the fun began. I had directions on where I should go, but I missed lanes and had to backtrack several times. Then there was a traffic circle a lane for cars, a lane for buses, a lane for bicycles, and tram rails running right through the center of it. Streets, sidewalks, parking spots aren’t made of concrete or asphault, they’re usually all brick. This along with no US-style street signs makes it at first very difficult to figure out what’s really a drivable road and what’s a sidewalk. I missed many of my turnoffs before I realized they were really streets and not some alley. I wound up driving into Vondlepark at one point before backtracking. Relieved, I finally found my hotel. Did I mention this was all at night?
A *lot* of people ride bicycles in Amsterdam, both in the city center and the “rest” of the city. All kinds of people commuting on a bike; impeccably dressed professionals, people carrying their groceries, kids riding two at a time. There are seperate bicycle traffic signals and lanes along almost all of the rodes and sidewalks. If you’re a pedestrian that wanders into a bike lane thinking it’s a sidewalk, angry ringing of bells and horns of cyclists will scold you for your error. On mornings going to work, I usually had to wait more on bicycle traffic than I did car rush-hour traffic.
My hotel was very euro, an old elegant three story building that appeared to be converted to a hotel. My room was on the top floor under the gables of the roof. Roof joists ran through my room, providing angled walls. The room was very small by US standards, with a twin-sized bed, but very cozy and provided just enough space for one person.
Driving in Amsterdam was unnerving, and I wasn’t even driving around in the center of the city. Watching out for cyclists, trams, buses, signals, lack of clear street signs kept me on my toes. By Wednesday I could find my hotel without any problem, but I was ready to ditch the car and figure out the tram system. Parking was very expensive, usually 12 euro a day, so I had to make sure I left the hotel by 9:00 AM to avoid having to pay. Fortunately after that I had watched enough to see how others drove, learned what road signs meant, and had no reservations about buzzing alongside cyclists or taking off down the middle of the road over tram rails.
During the week, I didn’t explore very much. I always went directly from the hotel to work, return and sleep. One night I drove completely around the A10 ring to see the area around the city. I found a McDonalds there and also found the only person on the whole trip who couldn’t understand English. It took a bit of pointing and picking out the Dutch I knew, but I finally had food. This was my first exposure to fritessaus — mayonnaise for french fries. It complimented the taste of fried food very well and wasn’t the same stinky concoction you get out a Hellmann’s jar in the states.
For lunch I started walking down to Middenweg from Sciencepark. A colleague told me about a small market area there with a snack bar, grocery store, tobacco shop, a bakery and other little stores. My first trip to the snack bar was somewhat humbling. Being hungry, not understanding what anything on href=”/i/t-hoekje-menu.jpg”>the menu is, it’s sort of pitiful. I went with a safe hamburger (no buns) with frites, with a heaping glob of fritessaus. The next day was a shoarmarol, which best I can describe is a deep fried enchilada.
Home of Nationaal Instituut voor Kernfysica en Hoge-Energiefysica (National Institute for Nuclear Physics and High Energy Physics, NIKHEF), Foundation for Fundamenal Research on Matter, and an arm of the Universiteit van Amsterdam (Univ of Amsterdam), a good amount of high-end scientific computing and nuclear physics research happens at the Sciencepark. I found out the building I was working in was previously home to a linear particle accelerator, which explained why the building was so ridiculously long and skinny. There was a chicken running around the campus, I fully expected some old woman to come by on a bike to shoo it along, but I’m told it was a pet of a researcher at NIKHEF. The other story I heard was that it was a leftover from the accelerator days and if the chicken died, it would be the end of the world.
I had a bad experience at a grocery store which makes me wonder if I was singled out for being a foreigner. My total came to like 29,00 euro, so I gave the girl a 50 euro note. Expecting to get back 20 euro in change, she only handed me my receipt and PIN info for a prepaid mobile card I bought. I caught this, got back in line and asked where my change was. She claims she gave it to me, which did not happen. I got the manager involved, who tells me they’ll have to wait until they count down the registers to see if they’re long. The manager offered to call and tell me the results, but by then I fully lost any expectation to get my money back. To her credit, she did call me the next day, but of no good purpose. Later I went back two times to get my receipt back so I could at least claim part of my expenses, but the same manager wasn’t working and nobody else had any clue what I was talking about. Now I’m not only out 20 euro, I’m out the whole 50 euro. grrrr, anger!
On Wednesday while Austin was getting pelted with an ice storm and snow flurries, apparently the mother of all wind storms hit Europe. Something like 20+ people were killed across the continent from falling/flying debris. At lunch it was extremely windy and it was a workout walking to lunch, but I didn’t think anything about it. The lack of cyclists, blown down trees and shattered telephone booth should’ve clued me in. When I got back I made smalltalk with the security guard who told me that this was a bad storm, winds of 120+ km/h were clocked, and chunks of noise walls along A10 had been blown into the road. I later found out that police were actually urging people to not go outside because of falling tree branches and clay roof tiles flying off roofs. The television news that night showed countless cars crushed by fallen trees, a crane that had collapsed, a big industrial smokestack that toppled over, and destroyed boats. Bus and train service was totally shut down for the first time in decades. I couldn’t understand the people being interviewed, but it looked very similar to post-tornado interviews in Oklahoma so I had a good idea of what they were probably saying. The next day’s newspaper headlines read “Winds flatten Netherlands”.
I worked long hours to try getting ahead to be able to finish work on Friday afternoon, but it didn’t happen. Saturday morning I dropped my car off at the airport and took the train to Centraal Station. This put me at the center of the city (“Centrum”). It was cold, windy, and rainy, but I wasn’t about to let that stop my only free day. Centrum was so much different than the rest of the city I was now familiar with, many sections were totally geared for tourists. All manner of fast food was available, cheesy souiviners and t-shirts, and no shortage of people with cameras taking pictures of buildings. For 10 AM on a rainy day, there was quite a few people out.
Now as a pedestrian, I had a whole new perspective of the city. The street signs on buildings were really easy to read from the sidewalk and made it pretty unambiguous what went where. The old grey-brown brick alleyways and streets made the city look much more attractive than ugly old plain white concrete or black asphalt would. The rest of the city was nice in its own quaint way, but Centrum was really nice. There was a great variety, no two buildings looked the same, they were all relatively old. Lots of canals and bridges to break up the monotony. I’m very thankful there was virtually no car traffic clogging up the city; parking is very hard to find or is very expensive. All traffic downtown was either trams, bicycles, or pedestrians on foot. Centrum wasn’t horribly big, I think one could walk across it in less than 30 minutes.
There were a considerable number of attractive females wandering around. I’d say half were what I would say above-average in attractiveness. No fat American girls here, these were all in decent shape. Most seemed to be Dutch, although I picked out a few French and British based on hearing conversations. I could spend hours listening to a girl ramble on in Dutch. I hear I need to visit NYC and Manhattan to see how the girls there compare.
I wandered around the shopping district, Chinatown, and part of the University. Some snackbar I stopped at had the best damned milkshake ever, along with frites and friessaus. By afternoon the sun was out and I was tired of walking, so I walked back to the hotel and discovered yet more new parts of the city. I had bought a strippenkaard for the trams but never figured out how to work them. Between the Leidsplein and the hotel was the Reiksmuseum, the Van Gogh Museum, and curiously the British General Counsulate (behind a temporary high fence with a police trailer outpost out front). I took a nap for a few hours and headed back out to Centrum.
This time it was dark and there were more people. Centrum was fully lit and a hopping night spot. I stopped by a street restaurant and ordered a shawarma, basically chicken shoved into pitabread with onions, curry, and peppers. It was a tasty meal and was surprisingly filling. Drunk or stoned young people were out in force. I was offered coke and extacy three times, two of which were in broad daylight. If I had a tripod I could’ve taken some great nighttime building and canal pictures, maybe next time.
I wandered over to the red light district to check that out. The buildings along the canal lit up the place and it was a crowded place. Down narrow alleys were the girls in their windows/doorways trying to lure in guys. There were some real hotties there and some real skanks in the mix. The police were definately present in the area. I hear the RLD is really one of the safer parts of the city because of the concentration of police, but pickpocketing is common because of the crowds. As I was walking along I heard an alarm go off in a girl’s room and the police entering to help; some drunk asshole causing trouble I assume.
By midnight:30 I was all Amsterdammed out. I walked back to the hotel. Leidseplein was really alive now and the last trams were running.
I took several photos in Centrum, but between the lack of not knowing what stuff was, the overcast skies and rain, not to mention being zapped by the xray machines at the airport, I don’t know if I have anything useful. I would’ve liked to have gone out to the country, hit some of the museums and older buildings, Vondelpark to take pictures, but I just did not have the time.
Sunday I flew back to the US. The 12 hour flight from AMS to IAH was a bear. Seven hours into the flight we had just reached the Labrador coast, I had read all my books, my throat was very dry (stupid fucking no-liquids-on-plane rules) and I was getting anxious to get off the plane. Listening to somebody go sideways on a poor Continental agent and other people bickering about the most inane things in the gate area, and people engrossed in football reminded me I was in the US again. I drove a Volvo S40 all week in Amsterdam, it took a bit of getting used to my truck again. Part of me misses Netherlands, but it’s wonderful to be back in my own comfort zone again. I want to go back and visit other countries now.
Jan 10th, 2007 by bwann
I am finally credit card debt free, yippee! I gave in and paid off my last two cards in one lump sum. Digging around in one of my bank accounts I had setup to auto pay off a card, it had long been paid off and I had a $800 credit built up. I don’t expect to get 29% or whatever interest rate on the balance, much the pity. A year to go on truck payments, then I’ll be even happier!
I also cut Cingular loose today. I bought a Nokia 6310i off eBay on the cheap and put my T-Mobile prepaid SIM into it. After using it for a few days, I ported my number over to it today. After taxes, I’m paying right at $90/month for Cingular’s national coverage with roaming included. I don’t use my phone or roam as much as I used to, and $100 of prepaid minutes will last me for months. The 6310i is an older GSM model in the same family of my 6360, which I’m attached to. The size is comfortable to hold, volume control on the side, identical menus, and the 6310i even sounds better with an obvious audio bass boost.
The 6310i does have Bluetooth, I was excited when my Mac discovered it. I could finally join the late 1990s and link it to my computer! The excitement quickly went away when I figured out iSync wouldn’t work with it. I found another sync program called Onsync which claims to have support, but it wasn’t working for me.
Speaking of phones, I watched Steve Job’s MacWorld keynote and the introduction of the iPhone. It looks incredibly slick, the browser and email is a great improvement over other phones I’ve used. I have often wanted the exact ability for a device to know my position via GPS and let me use Google Maps to see what kind of food, services, business, etc, are around my immediate vicinity. I have no plans to buy one though, they’re ridiculously expensive and I went with pre-paid mobile service precisely to get away from contracts. Cisco is already suing them in the Northern District of Califoria court for an injuction to stop using the name. Either a business unit didn’t get the memo, or their agreement wasn’t reached yesterday as expected. heeeeee!
To me, there’s a few things missing on the iPhone. No removable battery, you’re screwed when it eventually wears out, nor can you slip on a charged battery when it runs low. I haven’t heard if third party developers would be able to make apps for it, I can imagine the platform would make for some interesting tools. The lack of a iChat is sort of surprising, but this can probably be fixed later with software — you know, because audio, SMS, and email is not enough to stay in contact with all your friends. For those of us already with a Nano, I wonder if they’ll release a “lite” phone without the hard drive.
The first thing that came to mind when I saw the iPhone was, “wow, it would be really cool if it had an IR port and I could use it as a remote for Front Row, or even better yet a universal remote!” I say this because of the relative small form factor and I am more likely to have my phone at hand, not my three remotes for television/DVD/VCR/xbox media center. To me it just makes sense. The multi-touch screen would function nicely for a multi-device universal remote.
At first, the AppleTV had my attention. After reading the specs and what it can’t do, I’m less interested. It “plays the same video as iPods play” which means it can’t play DivX or VIDEO_TS from ripped DVDs, both of which are trivial on my Xbox + Xbox Media Center. I do have a DivX, XviD, WMA components for Quicktime, so that might work; still leaves out VIDEO_TS. I knew an attempt to get Linux running on it would surface, I was pleasantly amused when I saw a link on Digg saying “omg iTv would be perfect for Linux and mythtv!!@#$” Who knows, I might just buy one and live life through Apple to see what it’s like. I really need HDTV first.
I hit IKEA yet again. This time I picked up a bunch of picture frames. Sunday night I printed several sets of photographs from my trips, framed them, and put them up in my apartment to fill in gaps. My livingroom has series from Badwater and Kendall Katwalk. The blue skies match very nicely with my blue futon and existing Burning Man print. For the bathroom I did the token nautical theme; a series of a lighthouse and sea shells from Discovery Park in Seattle and coastal picture from Galveston.
I leave for Amsterdam this weekend. I’ll be over there a week for work. The plan is to have Saturday off, but I’m not holding my breath. The realization that I’m flying across the Atlantic to another country for the first time is starting to sink in.
Jan 2nd, 2007 by bwann
Registration: Group Health Seattle to Portland Bicycle Classic 2007 Purchase Date: 01/02/07 Category: Adult Registration Event Date: 07/14/07 - 07/15/07 Name: Bryan Wann
mmm pain, bring it on! The suggested milage schedule looks something like this:
Week Mon Tue Wed Thr Fri Sat Sun 2/19 - 2/25 63 20 10 33 2/26 - 3/4 70 20 30 20 3/5 - 3/11 80 20 40 20 3/12 - 3/18 90 30 50 10 3/19 - 3/25 110 20 70 20 4/2 - 4/8 110 20 50 30 4/9 - 4/15 130 40 70 20 4/16 - 4/22 120 20 80 20 4/23 - 4/29 140 40 70 30 4/30 - 5/6 190 50 80 60 5/7 - 5/13 160 50 90 20 5/14 - 5/20 150 30 80 40 5/21 - 5/27 180 40 90 50 5/28 - 6/3 190 50 110 30 6/4 - 6/10 200 30 10 140 20 6/11 - 6/17 210 40 20 100 50 6/18 - 6/24 180 40 90 50 6/25 - 7/1 150 30 80 40 7/2 - 7/8 120 40 60 20 7/9 - 7/15 234 20 10 204 0 6/12 - Estimated date of Armadillo Hill Country Classic, 100+ mi
I went up to Oklahoma for Christmas. The night before I came home my sinuses melted down. I’m just now getting over my cold, it’s driving me nuts because I can’t go out and run or riding.
On the way home I stopped at the mall and hit a couple of sales. I bought a featherbed cover and new sheets for my bed at a very nice discount. Constantly tossing and turning from being sick has made me at first unable to fully enjoy it, but now it’s feeling nicer every night. Tonight I went to IKEA and bought a new dark brown bed frame. I’m having buyer’s remorse, I really wished it it was light birch to match my other stuff. I decided in the store I could make it work, it’s just going to take a bit more effort and creativity I think.
I discovered my fridge+freezer went out sometime in the past few days. I noticed my soda wasn’t as cold as it usual was and thought the three wee old pizza was going south. After I took it out I noticed it still smelled “off” and opened up the freezer to find everything was well thawed out and melted. Good news is, I didn’t lose much, and it forced me to get rid of the mystery frozen chicken I’ve had for an unknown time. The repairman didn’t think he was able to fix it; heard some ice being plunked out earlier, so maybe it’ll last.
It took 12 hours longer than I thought it would for the Saddam execution video to make it online. I watched it today, death came quickly. I’ve only seen somebody’s cellphone video, but I’m sure later a higher quality video will be released. With the quality of the cellphone video and the number of men standing around in black masks, it really looks like the insurgents got to Saddam before the US did and this was their video of them killing him.
I bought a set of Krav Maga training DVDs. There’s a lot of combatives and disarming moves covered. It’s been a help watching them, every combative is broken down and discussed in detail. I’ve picked up many nuances to fix that I wasn’t aware of at the gym.
IKMF offers training in Israel. It sounds really interesting, maybe someday I’ll make the journey. The site says includes training in Netanya, Wingate Institute, and on the beach and in the water on the Mediterranean coast. 10 days with 4-6 hours of day of training, unf!
Dec 16th, 2006 by bwann
I got around to putting up my Christmas tree today. Then I went to dinner at William and Katherine’s. I was stuffed off of some yummy turkey and brisket. It was a houseful, standing room only.
I’m back home now. It’s incredibly peaceful and quiet here now. No television, no stereo playing, no wind, no traffic, no neighbors, no dogs, no heater running, just my ceiling fan and illumination from the tree. I think I say this every year, but this is where I need the cute blonde in a cozy sweater asleep on the futon.
Dec 11th, 2006 by bwann
$165 a year and NRA membership will get me insurance up to $100,000 coverage for bodily injury/property damage and $50,000 converage for criminal defense. Sounds like a pretty good deal. Especially since I don’t have a few thousand laying around to post bond for a grand jury when I shoot some asshole trying to rape my girlfriend or several tens of thousands more if it gets a pass and goes to trial.
I survived the concealed handgun course. If you ever need to get a Texas CHL or any sort of firearms training, I highly recommend Ross and Dottie Bransford over at CHL-Texas.com (warning: embedded sound). Ross is a very interesting character. To describe him I’d use all these phrases: successful businessman, red-blooded Texan, anti-liberal, Vietnam veteran, ex-drill instructor, and somebody who’s very passionate and knowledgeable about firearms and law.
Their class was very informative, interesting and fun, but quite a bit to pack into a 10 hour sitting. I learned quite a bit about the history of Texas which was set as a foundation to explain why gun laws in the state are what they are today. We talked about many firearm, legal, human behavior things I was maybe subconsiously aware of but didn’t really think about.
We were also gently ribbed about our “liberal” thoughts and how our generation is all too willing to give up freedoms given to us by the constitution. Basically, you have the right to live even if it means taking another person’s life. Many examples were made of the liberal-ness of Travis county, the Austin American-Statesman (and the media in general), and Texas prosecutors. We went through the Texas penal code and various scenarios to show how they can be interpreted. There’s some truly screwed up laws relating to guns and self defense.
Also in the penal code is a section that says a peace officer can call upon a citizen to help him carry out his duties (think “forming a sheriff’s posse”) and the citizen must obey. The citizen takes on all responsibilities and authority of the officer, BUT the citizen can still be slapped with a civil suit, and if the citizen injures or kills a bystander, they can be arrested and convicted! Welcome to Texas.
I’ve been a gun owner for all my life. I haven’t kept track of gun laws and I was surprised at what was being passed through legislature. Now that I have to follow these laws closer than I ever have before, it’s certainly got my attention to stand up for my rights as a gun owner and individual. I did some browsing around on NRA’s website and found a page where they keep track of current legislative and news items that applies to Texas. Most interesting to me (which Ross mentioned) is proposed “Castle doctrine” legislature. I definately want to see this to pass.
Currently, Texas has “duty to retreat” provisions which means a person is not authorized to use deadly force if a reasonable person would have escaped/retreated — including in your own home — unless there is immediate risk to protect yourself or to prevent things like aggravated kidnapping, murder, sexual assault, and robbery. More, the code says “The fact that conduct is justified under this chapter does not abolish or impair any remedy for the conduct that is available in a civil suit.” This means, if I kill somebody in self defense the dead asshole’s family can sue me for bankrupting them because of the expense of their defense. The “castle doctrine” bill would fix both of these. (Hopefully, if it’s not gutted).
My interest is certainly piqued, I have a lot more reading to do.
Dec 4th, 2006 by bwann
Argh! This hellacious week is over, finally. There wasn’t a night go by this week that I got a full night sleep due to being on-call. The sore throat I picked up last week is still annoying me. /whah. It was a mistake going out yesterday, holiday shopping has began. Cars going to the mall were backed up down 360; Westgate and Brodie were pretty packed too. If they weren’t buying loot, they were buying Christmas trees.
Nathan convinced me to finally get around to getting my Texas concealed handgun license, so we both signed up for a class taking place in a couple of weeks.
Nov 29th, 2006 by bwann
I survived Thanksgiving. Lots of traffic, the CB saved me at least three very lengthly stalls due to wrecks. Went to Oklahoma to visit the family, went to Tulsa to see the few friends I have left there. Got to see my cousins, some who I haven’t seen in years. I bought my parents a Mac Mini to try out; hopefully it’ll be more user friendly and reliable.
I wanted to throttle a bitch at Subway the other day. She was at the counter placing an order while considerably distracted talking on her cell phone with her mother. Every time the Subway gnome would ask a question because she couldn’t tell if the bitch was talking to her or to the phone, the bitch would snap at the cashier. Then she wasn’t paying attention and grabbed my sammich off the counter.
This week’s hobby: Gulf Arabic.
